


coming home

by yellowxne



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College, F/F, the rest of the gang is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27353065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowxne/pseuds/yellowxne
Summary: One by one, the friend group that Adora had so stubbornly insisted on dragging her into moved away, walking into the next chapter of their lives, until it was only Catra that remained. Her top choice of school happened to be only twenty minutes away, so she stayed.As she always did.And waited.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 153





	coming home

Catra knew Adora had to leave. 

It didn’t mean it stopped hurting, though. 

It was never going to stop hurting.

“I’ll miss you guys so much,” Adora sniffed, burying her face into Bow’s shoulder. Glimmer was next to them, a hand clutching Adora’s sleeve and tears in her eyes, a pink handkerchief dangling from her fingers. Catra stood a ways away from the three of them, arms crossed tightly over her chest, nails digging into the skin of her arms. There was a heaviness beneath her ribs she had almost forgotten the feeling of, the ball of betrayal and anger and sadness and heartbreak. Her teeth bit down on the inside of her cheek, and she quickly tasted blood. 

“You better call us every day!” Bow cried, not even bothering to hide the waterfalls making their ways down his face. Adora nodded, hugging him even tighter. 

Heart giving a sudden clench, Catra turned away, looking up in disdain at the airport before them. There was a plane in there somewhere that was going to take Adora away, miles and miles away, too far away, all for some athletics scholarship this spiffy college in the middle of some big city was offering. Nobody in their right mind would have refused it. 

Catra wanted to hate Adora. She really did. After everything they went through together, all their close calls, she was just going to get up and walk away again? Even after the whispered promise to stay? 

But Catra didn’t hate Adora. Couldn’t. 

As if sensing her thoughts, a warm hand placed itself softly on the small of her back, pulling her attention back to her friends. Adora stood next to her, eyes rimmed with red, her cheeks blotchy, but a smile on her face. Behind her, Bow and Glimmer were hugging each other, Glimmer patting Bow’s back as they both sniffled. Catra looked back to Adora, not knowing what to think of the affectionate glow in her eyes. 

“I’m still here,” Adora whispered. She gently knocked their foreheads together. “I’m not leaving.” 

Catra scoffed out a laugh, but it was quiet, shaky. “You’re flying halfway across the country.” 

“Well, physically, yeah, I’m leaving,” Adora chuckled, and Catra stared at her lips, at how the left corner of her mouth curled upward a little bit more than the right, at the indent her front teeth left on her bottom lip. She was going to miss those lips. She was going to miss the dumbass attached to those lips. 

Holy fuck, she was going to miss Adora. 

Discarding her cool demeanor, Catra threw her arms around Adora’s neck, pulling her flush against her. She heard Adora stutter her name in a pained whisper as she hid her face in Adora’s shoulder, quickly feeling strong arms wrap around her and pull her even closer. Tears sprang to Catra’s eyes without her consent, and the pain in her chest swelled to fill her lungs, throat, mouth. 

_Adora, Adora, Adora._

“Call me when you land, okay?” Catra choked out. It was hard to speak, let alone breathe. It was hard to do anything except hold Adora and pretend the world could hold off at least a little longer. 

“I will,” Adora whispered. 

_Adora Adora Adora._

“Promise?”

Adora pulled away, just a little bit. Their arms were still entangled, their noises brushing, and she didn’t look away from Catra’s eyes. 

“I promise.”

_AdoraAdoraAdora._

Catra stood with Glimmer and Bow as they all waved to Adora walking through the gate. The last Catra saw of her was her long blond ponytail, whipping behind her as she turned, and the smallest flash of her wide smile. Catra allowed Glimmer and Bow to hug her between them, just this once. 

It wasn’t long before Glimmer packed up and left, with Bow following only a couple days later. Catra spent the rest of the week tagging along with Scorpia and Entrapta before they left, too. One by one, the friend group that Adora had so stubbornly insisted on dragging her into moved away, walking into the next chapter of their lives, until it was only Catra that remained. Her top choice of school happened to be only twenty minutes away, so she stayed. 

As she always did. 

And waited. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Bow was the first back. 

Catra had volunteered to drive the three hours to pick him up, surprising everyone, including herself. She had expected the anguish over Adora’s absence, of course, but she had not been prepared to miss the rest of the buffoons this much. The past four months of their usual places beside her being empty had done a toll on her that only became worse the colder it got. She pulled up outside his campus with the heat in her car on high, wrapped in a winter jacket and bright red scarf. Bow had laughed, and only laughed more after he dropped his gift for her on her head, a black beanie with little cat ears poking out of the top. She pretended to hate it, she really did. The fact that she didn’t take it off for the entire ride home said enough, however. 

Not everyone returned for the break. Some visited family elsewhere, others stayed and tried to pick up more jobs. Perfuma and Scorpia came back, hands linked, and had ambushed Catra in a bone crushing hug when she wasn’t paying attention. Glimmer returned wrapped up in sweaters and coats that rivaled even Catra’s need to stay warm, her scarf pulled up to her nose. Bow had found that absolutely adorable and continued to gush about it for the next ten minutes. Catra was going to be sick. 

The two days Catra had to wait until Adora came home felt longer than the four months she had already sat through. She let the others rope her into going out and watching movies and ordering pizza to eat at one in the morning so she didn’t drive her mind into a wall of restless agony. 

Catra wanted Adora back. 

“Ten more hours, Catra,” Adora mumbled sleepily through the phone, and Catra gripped at the sheets tangled around her legs. It was a couple hours past midnight, and Catra was wide awake, staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. 

“I miss you,” Adora whispered. Catra hid her smile in her pillow, cursing the tingles that spread through her chest and stomach, all the way down to her toes. 

“Dork,” she chuckled. She heard Adora huff a laugh, but exhaustion cut it shorter than Catra wanted. 

“Say it back,” she whined, and Catra grinned harder into her pillow. 

“I miss you, too.” Catra rolled over, pulling her sheets up to her chin and tucking her knees to her chest. “I miss you so much, Adora.” 

It was silent on the other end, and Catra closed her eyes, feeling sleep grasping at her a little more. She could hear Adora’s slow breathing, and briefly wondered if she had passed out. 

There was the sound of rough shifting, then Adora muttered, “Ten hours is too fucking long.” 

Catra blinked at the curse. Adora didn’t have anything against cursing, but she rarely did it herself. Something warm trickled into her chest and cheeks, and she stifled a flustered laugh. 

“Tell me about it,” she breathed. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


It was noon.

Catra leaned against a pillar, tapping her fingers restlessly against her arm, eyes glancing back and forth between the clock and the gate Adora would soon be walking through. Other people shifted around her, waiting for their friends or loved ones that they would finally be reuniting with. A young boy not too far from her was holding a sign that she couldn’t read from her angle, but he was furiously jumping up and down with it in excitement. Catra wondered if she should have made a sign, but quickly dismissed the thought. 

The rest of their friends were gathered at Scorpia’s house, setting up a welcome home party for Adora. Catra had volunteered to be the chauffeur, which thankfully nobody had protested, although she suspected that had been their plan all along. It was no secret that Catra would rather take a bath with slugs than wait any longer to see Adora. Video chats were not even close to the real thing. 

Someone close to her let out a shout, and Catra snapped her head up. People were starting to file out of the gate, dragging their suitcases behind them. The little boy was holding his sign high above his head, then immediately dropped it to run towards a man that had just walked through the gate. 

Catra pushed off from her pillar and dug her fingernails into her palms, eyes flickering throughout the small crowd of people that was slowly trickling in. A few flashes of long blond hair had her heart skipping a beat, then dropping in disappointment when Adora’s smile wasn’t attached to it. She started to bite at her bottom lip, a bad habit she couldn’t drop no matter how hard she tried. 

_Where are you?_

“C’mon, Adora,” Catra hissed under her breath, rocking back and forth on her heels. “It’s been ten hours. Come home already.”

_Come home._

Her gaze caught on blue eyes, and her heart stopped. 

Adora looked good in red, even when it was a probably dirty hoodie with her college’s logo on the front. She looked good in jeans, especially the ripped ones she wore now, revealing patches of her suntanned skin. She even looked good in her stupid Adidas sneakers she refused to get rid of, even though they were literally falling apart and were more gray than white. 

She looked downright beautiful with her blond hair chopped short, a few strands sweeping across her face and what looked to be a diamond shape design shaved into an undercut. 

She stopped in front of Catra, propping her suitcase up and dropping her backpack by her feet. She took Catra in the same way Catra was doing to her, a soft smile gracing her pretty lips and a blush rising to her cheeks and ears. 

Here. Adora was _here._ Adora was _home_. 

Adora had come home. 

“Hey, Adora,” Catra whispered, too choked up to say anything else. 

Adora grinned, and she stepped forward, her hand coming up to hover over Catra’s cheek. Catra leaned her head into the touch, bringing her own hand up to cup Adora’s. 

“Hey, Catra,” Adora breathed. “Looking good.”

Catra scoffed. “Is this why you were _so busy_ and couldn’t FaceTime? You wanted to surprise me?” 

A little sheepishly, Adora rubbed the back of her neck, void of the usual ponytail. “I did, yeah. I wanted something… different. Something new.” Dropping her arm, she lowered her head an inch, eyes not leaving Catra’s. “Do you… like it?” 

Catra’s gut twisted along with her chest, but she refused to be the first one to turn away. “I fucking love it, Adora.” 

A laugh escaped Adora’s lips, and she shook her head fondly. “I thought we would have been twinning, but yours grew faster than I thought.” She played with a strand of Catra’s hair, which was just long enough now to reach her jaw. “I think I like this better, though.” 

Catra kissed her. 

Adora wasn’t the first girl that Catra has kissed. She kissed a girl with bright red converse in the hallway of some high school party a few years ago. She had been wearing some kind of jersey, and her blond hair was in a long braid down her back. It hadn’t taken much deductive work to figure out why she had captured Catra’s attention. 

Adora was taller than the girl. Her lips were more rough, her arms bigger. Catra went up on her tiptoes, sliding her hands to Adora’s shoulders, tilting her head and exhaling through her nose. Adora was frozen, but after a moment she relaxed into the kiss, her hand going from Catra’s cheek to the back of her head and pulling her closer, closer. Catra’s whole body was warm, so warm, the tingling in her stomach spreading to her cheeks and arms and legs and she felt weightless, the clouds below her feet, her heart on fire and burning her up from the inside out. 

“Adora,” Catra murmured. 

_AdoraAdoraAdoraAdoraAdoraAdoraAdora_.

Adora smiled into the kiss, pulling away just barely, her lips brushing Catra’s. “Hey, Catra.” 

Catra’s eyes fluttered open, finding Adora staring down at her with such a lovestruck face it made her feel dizzy. Adora stared at her as if she painted the sunsets every night just for her eyes to see, breathed life into the oceans to make them dance against the sandy beaches so Adora could fall asleep to its music, created the flowers that blew in the wind so only Adora could witness their beauty. And Catra would, she would do all those and more, because.

Because.

“ _I love you_.” 

Adora leaned in again, this kiss an awkward clash of teeth due to the fact neither could stop smiling. “I love you, too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> just a little thing to get back into writing


End file.
